LONDON (Reuters) - BBC Chairman Richard Sharp resigned on Friday after an independent report found he breached rules for public appointments in relation to a loan for then Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Sharp said he had agreed to a request to stay on until the end of June to give the government time to find his successor. The country’s public appointments watchdog has been investigating the way in which Sharp was selected by the government to chair the broadcaster in 2021. The report found that while he did breach the government’s code for public appointments by failing to disclose a potential conflict of interest, it was also the case that a breach did not necessarily invalidate his appointment. But Sharp said staying until the end of his four year term would be a distraction from the broadcaster’s “good work”.

 

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 LONODN (The Independent) - Rail workers at 14 train operators are to strike on the day of the Eurovision Song Contest final after union leaders rejected the latest offer aimed at resolving a long-running pay dispute. Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) will walk out on May 13 after the union’s executive turned down a “clarification“on an offer from the Rail Delivery Group (RDG). The RMT said the offer included a first-year payment of 5% but only if the union terminated its industrial mandate, meaning no further strike action could take place.

 

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ALASKA (AP) — Two U.S. Army helicopters collided and crashed Thursday in Alaska while returning from a training flight, killing three soldiers and injuring a fourth. Two of the soldiers died at the scene of the crash near Healy, Alaska, and a third died on the way to a hospital in Fairbanks. A fourth soldier was being treated at a hospital for injuries, the Army said in a statement. The names of those killed were being withheld until relatives could be notified, the Army said. Each AH-64 Apache helicopter was carrying two people at the time of the crash, John Pennell, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Alaska, said earlier Thursday.

 

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BRASÍLIA (AP) — Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Friday granted official recognition of nearly 800 square miles of Indigenous lands, following through on a campaign promise in a move that also protects critical Amazon rainforest from commercial exploitation. Lula recognized six ancestral lands. The two largest are in the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical forest and an important carbon sink that helps moderate climate change. The total area of recognized lands in the biome is 161,500 hectares (620 square miles).

 

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BERLIN (AP) — Climate activists staged a 10th straight day of protests in Berlin, blocking key roads during rush hour and bringing parts of the German capital to a standstill Friday before being removed by police.

Members of the Last Generation group glued themselves to the road, causing a traffic jam for commuters driving into the city. The group wants to draw attention to the threat of global warming and the need for governments to step up measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions.